It is far too easy to blame people when systems fail. The result is that
over 75% of all accidents are blamed on human error. Wake up people! When
the percentage is that high, it is a signal that something else is at fault
-- namely, the systems are poorly designed from a human point of view. As I
have said many times before (even within these RISKS mailings), if a valve
failed 75% of the time, would you get angry with the valve and simply
continual to replace it? No, you might reconsider the design specs. You would
try to figure out why the valve failed and solve the root cause of the
problem. Maybe it is underspecified, maybe there shouldn't be a valve there,
maybe some change needs to be made in the systems that feed into the valve.
Whatever the cause, you would find it and fix it. The same philosophy must
apply to people.

"In case you're curious what Hawaii's EAS/WEA interface looks like, I believe it's similar to this. Hypothesis: they test their EAS authorization codes at the beginning of each shift and selected the wrong option."

This is absolutely classic enterprisey, government-standard web UX -- a dropdown template selection and an easily-misclicked pair of tickboxes to choose test or live mode.

This aspect of road design had never occurred to me, but once explained it makes sense. Great article on the design of an oblique crossroads junction and how it's unexpectedly dangerous due to human factors and car design.

“Human error” may be real, but so are techniques to mitigate or eliminate its effects — and driver training is poor when it comes to equipping people with those techniques, let alone habituating them. (And let alone reviewing knowledge of those techniques every few years.)

'a Japanese term that means "mistake-proofing". A poka-yoke is any mechanism in a lean manufacturing process that helps an equipment operator avoid (yokeru) mistakes (poka). Its purpose is to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors as they occur.'